Tip: How to move whole directory with its content on FTP server

beholder

2008-06-17 15:07

Here is another handy tip for those, who must move BIG directories on an ftp server and don't want to copy all those files from ftp to local machine and then back to ftp.

As an example, perhaps you want to move all content from directory "public_html/img/" to directory "public_html/files/img/"

1. Basically, to move a whole directory along with its contents you must first create a new directory of the same name where you want to have that particular directory moved. So go create a new directory "img" in public_html/files/

2. Then you must go (for example in Total Commander) at least one parent above the directories you want to move or move to: in this case it would be the public_html directory. This is very important, I explain why later.

3. Next write command:


rnfr img

The message from server should be that the directory was found and marked for renaming/moving.

4. Next don't do anything else but write command:


rnto files/img

The message from server should be that the directory was renamed/moved successfully.

Notes:
- you cannot do any other ftp command between step 3 and 4. Not even list, or anything else. Command "rnfr" must be immediately followed by "rnto", otherwise the sequence is broken.
- because of that you must be ABOVE those two directories when doing the moving and use correct paths in the rnfr-rnto commands.
- the original directory that you moved from becomes deleted in this process, its content with all subdirectories is moved to the new directory.
- a tricky thing is to move for example all files from directory "files/" to directory "files/new/" without moving subdirectories in "files/". You would have to use some "helper" directories in the process and do several rnfr-rnto operations. It's possible though.